J is for Jealousy
"What the hell is his problem!" Travis shouted loudly while looking out the window of Chiron's office.
"I believe the correct wording would be 'What the Hades is his problem?' instead of using the inappropriate word of H-E-double hockey-" Chiron began.
"Oh, shut up, Chiron!" he shouted without taking his eyes off of the subject outside the window. His voice was clouded with hurt and anger. "Nobody gives a shit!"
The older man looked startled at Travis's forcefulness. Rolling his wheelchair over to the window, he questioned kindly, "My boy, may I ask what is making you so frustrated?"
Travis huffed rudely. "That!" He pointed out the window, and Chiron followed with his eyes. He didn't see anything out of the ordinary. There were demigods training in the swords center, and Aphrodite girls swooning over Apollo boys shooting arrows. The Isis and the Dionysus cabins were having a chariot race while some satyrs chased around wood nymphs nearby. Demeter kids were planting strawberries in the fields, and the Hermes kids were having a volleyball game against the Athena cabin. Nothing was out of the ordinary. "They make me sick," Travis mumbled under his breath.
"I'm sorry, but what exactly are we looking at?" Chiron asked.
He threw his arms up in frustration. "Conner and Katie! Conner and Katie!" he yelled, pointing at them in the distance. Far, far away, almost out of sight, sat Conner and Katie in the Strawberry Fields. It looked as if she was teaching him how to garden. They were digging and laughing and smiling. Travis, on the other hand, was huffing and puffing and flinching. "Look at them, laughing and shit. Disgusting. They just make me want to punch a baby in the throat and then let it go die in a hole."
Chiron rolled away from the window and back to his desk. "Well if they are frustrating you so, boy, why don't you stop looking?"
"I need to make sure Conner doesn't do anything to her. I won't let him hurt her." He looked so pained by the sight, it made Chiron feel a bit bad for him.
"Well, what will you do if Conner does something to her?" he asked.
Anger covered the pain in Travis's eyes. "I'm going to go over there, punch him in the throat, and then let him go die in a hole."
"All right, that's enough," Chiron said, rolling his chair back over to the window. He pulled on a string, and the blinds rolled down, blocking out the children outside. Travis made a strangled noise in the back of his throat, and tried to peer outside by pulling the blinds away. He whimpered again when Chiron smacked his hand and he couldn't see anything but the small, white blinds. "Sit down, Travis."
"But-" he started, pointing at the window helplessly.
"Sit down."
Travis let out a sad sigh and walked around Chiron's desk to the small, plushy chair he had sat in numerous times. Whenever he got in trouble at camp he was sent to Chiron's office. It was just like the principal's office at his old school that he went to before coming to camp, except Chiron's smelt like stinky horse.
"Please elaborate on what is making you so angry, Travis," Chiron said.
"It's stupid ass Conner. He just decided this morning that he was going to make my life miserable so he goes out there and he's all flirting and shit. Ugh! It pisses me off!" he shouted through gritted teeth.
"And how does that make you feel?" he asked, writing down notes and pushing his glasses farther up his nose like some sort of psychologist.
"I just said it pisses me off! Do you need me to go farther? It makes me want to pull my hair out and stomp me feet. It makes me want to punch Conner repeatedly in the face. It makes me want to bury him alive in a funeral house filled with zombies. It makes me want to lock him in a room with surround sound as it blares Justin Bieber music. It makes me want to shove one of those fake hearing devices so far up his ass he can hear his own small intestine as it produces shit! It makes me-"
"I see none of these involve Katie," Chiron observed, cutting Travis off mid-rant.
"Of course they don't! I love her!"
"Then have you ever thought that maybe you're jealous?"
Travis stared at Chiron completely awestruck. "Me?" he asked. "Jealous? Ha! I laugh at that!" Was that a blush appearing on his cheeks?
Chiron sighed. "Okay, then. Let's imagine something, shall we? Let's say I have a girlfriend." Travis chuckled, earning him a glare from Chiron. He bowed his head to avoid the older man's gaze. "Let's say I have a girlfriend," Chiron repeated. "One day, I see her talking to Mr. D. and I take things way out of proportion, thinking he's flirting with her and trying to steal her away from me. I then go up to him and punch him in the throat, as you say. What do you say about that, Travis?"
"I'd say you're a jealous bastard who seriously needs to just chillax a little bit." It was silent between the two of them as the meaning sunk in. Travis stood up from his chair abruptly. "I am so not jealous!" he shouted before stomping out of the room moodily.
Travis decided that before he went all crazy bitch on Conner, he had to make sure that he was actually hitting on Katie. Now, a normal person would go up to the two of them and confront them right there, asking about their feelings and stating their own, but Travis was no normal person. So, of course, he hid behind a bush and spied on them.
"So you just dig a hole," Travis heard Katie say from behind the leaves of a large strawberry plant. He could see her digging around in the dirt through a small break of vegetation. "And then you put the seed in." She dropped a seed. "And then you cover it back up." She covered the hole back up with excess dirt. "You've just learned how to plant a seed," she said, staring up at Conner.
"Huh," he huffed, a perplexed expression on his face. "You make it look so easy."
Katie laughed. What the shit hole? Travis had always been able to make her laugh. Always. But Conner? Never. "Because it is easy."
Conner grinned. "But do you know who you're talking to? I find making cereal by myself hard."
"That's because your brain is the size of a pea." What the shit hole again? Katie had never said that Travis's brain was the size of a pea. Of course, he was pissed.
"Yes, but I promise you, all my other organs are, oh, quite large."
Travis couldn't keep it inside his head this time. "What the shit hole!" he shouted loudly, standing up from his crouching position behind the bush and revealing himself. "She doesn't want to hear about your dick, Conner!"
Conner stood up to match his brother's height. "How do you know I'm talking about my dick?" he yelled.
"What 'other organ' would you be talking about?" he bellowed, using air quotes.
"I don't know! My heart!"
Travis guffawed. "Yeah, right! Your heart's like a black hole!"
"You dirty little bastard."
"I'm the bastard? Ha! But you're right about one thing, though."
"What's that?"
"Your dick's bigger than a pea. It's the size of a Tic-Tac, actually."
"A pea's bigger than a Tic-Tac!"
"Not the baby kind!"
"Guys, shut up!" Katie shouted. Once the brothers were quiet, she relaxed a bit and asked, "Travis, what are you doing here?"
He suddenly went stiff. "I-I wasn't spying on you."
She couldn't help but smile. "I never said you were."
"Well that's good. Cuz I wasn't."
Katie laughed slightly and shook her head.
"Ha," Conner said pitifully. "You're so funny, Travis." He took a step forward so he was standing right next to Katie, and he threw an arm around her shoulder. She seemed surprised by this. Surprised and slightly disgusted. "But it doesn't matter anymore, cuz Katie and I are in love."
"What!" Travis shouted, hurt and anger obvious in his tone. He was seeing red.
"In love?" Katie's face distorted even more, making her look as if she smelt something absolutely terrible.
"Yes. In love. Isn't that right, Katie?" Conner asked, turning his head to face her. He winked at her slyly.
"No!" she shouted, shaking her head violently.
Conner rolled his eyes, and bent down so that their lips were touching.
Travis couldn't believe what he was seeing. This wasn't happening. His brother was so not kissing Katie right now. He squeezed his eyes shut tightly, hoping that maybe when he opened them up again, he would wake up in his bedroom and Conner would go back to hating Katie and everything would be normal.
But when he opened his eyes again, he was not in his bedroom. He was out in the Strawberry Fields and Conner and Katie were kissing right in front of him.
She pushed him back fiercely, making Conner stumble a bit. "What the hell was that?" she shouted. "That was so not part of the plan!"
"The plan?" Travis asked curiously, but neither of them paid attention.
"I know it wasn't," Conner said. "But I felt something, Katie, and I know you feel it, too. We belong together." Travis saw him wink at her and raise his eyebrows. What plan were they talking about earlier?
"Bitch, please!" she shouted. She spit on the ground, and pointed at it with a sickened look on her face. "I wasn't chewing gum before!"
"Please, Katie," begged Conner.
"Never! Even if there's a fire!" she yelled before running off back towards camp.
The two brothers were left alone in an awkward silence.
"So . . ." Conner trailed off.
Travis rolled his eyes. "Ass hole," he muttered under his breath before sprinting towards Katie.
He caught her just as she was about to go into the girl's bathroom. "Hey," he said, completely out of breath.
She smiled slightly. "Hey. I was just about to go wash out my mouth repeatedly. Wanna come?"
Travis hesitated. "In there?" he asked, pointing towards the door.
She grinned wider. "Yeah."
"But it's the girl's bathroom."
Katie laughed. "In case you haven't noticed, Travis, I'm a girl."
"Yeah, and in case you haven't noticed, I'm not."
She rolled her eyes before grabbing his wrist and dragging him towards the door. "Come on."
He stopped her before they both entered. "I'm scared," he whispered.
Laughing once more, she said, "What is there to be scared of?"
He shrugged and was about to answer when Clarisse stepped out of the door of the bathroom. When passing by Travis she shoved him, making him stumble back and fall on his butt. "Fag," she said over her shoulder as she walked away.
"Did that answer your question?" he asked, standing up and dusting off his clothes.
"She left now. Come on." Katie grabbed his wrist once more and pulled him into the bathroom.
The walls were white and completely blank except for the occasional 'Alisa was here! ;)' There were showers on one wall, stalls on another, and a row of sinks hanging below one giant mirror. They were the only campers in there, thank the gods.
"See?" Katie asked, releasing his wrist and walking towards the sinks. "Nothing scary." She turned on a sink and starting gathering a pool of water in her hands.
Travis followed and stood next to her, watching their reflections in the mirror. He bit his lip before muttering, "I'm sorry Conner was being such an ass back there."
She shook her head. "Don't be sorry. It's not your fault. It's mine, actually," she said. She brought the small pool of water in her hands up to her mouth and slurped it. She began gurgling it around, trying to clean out all trace of Conner.
Travis shook his own head. "You can't help how hot you are, Katie."
He thought he heard her laugh, but wasn't completely sure. He couldn't tell with the gurgling. She spit out the water, wiped her mouth, and turned to him with a smile. "That's not what I meant."
He looked at his shoes, embarrassed, feeling the heat on his cheeks. "Oh."
"But thanks, I guess. I meant that, well, I heard about what you did to Andrew."
Travis looked up. "Who?" he asked, confusion etched on his face.
She rolled her eyes. "Andrew. My ex-boyfriend." She sighed. "The guy that you punched in the face a few weeks ago."
He bowed his head once more, his blush coming back. "Oh. Oh right."
"Well, I thought that if you'd get that jealous and do something so drastic like that to someone you didn't even know, I wanted to see what you'd do if it was your own brother."
"Well, that was - wait! What?"
"I wanted to see-"
He cut her off. "No, no, no! I heard it the first time! You think I'm . . . jealous?"
"Well, yeah. What else would you call it?" she asked, a slight, mocking smile on her lips.
"Ha! Psh! Psh! . . . Psh! I am so not . . . jealous."
"Then what are you, Travis?"
"I'm-I'm not jealous, that's for sure. I've never been jealous before in my life, actually. Never. And I never will be. Even if there's a fire."
Katie turned back to the mirror and started fixing her pony tail. "Fine then," she said. "Then you wouldn't mind me telling you that I think Conner's a better kisser."
Travis bit his tongue so hard he wasn't surprised when he tasted the bitterness of blood. "That doesn't bother me at all," he muttered through clenched teeth.
Katie had to hold back a laugh. "Good. Let's go." They walked out of the bathroom and towards the Demeter cabin. "Have you ever felt your brother's hands?" she asked. "They're so soft."
"You touched them?"
"I held them."
Travis refused to crack. "That's nice."
Katie smiled. "Oh, and his hair! I ran my hands through it. It was so soft, thick, and luscious."
He wasn't going to crack. He wasn't going to crack.
"And his lips, oh his lips, were so soft! And they tasted like Corn Pops. I love Corn Pops."
He cracked. Grabbing her hand, he quickly pulled her to him and kissed her fiercely. She returned the kiss with equal force. He made sure to hold on to one of her hands and to have the other in his hair. He was also sure to make this kiss he was giving her the best one he'd ever give in his life.
He pulled back after a bit and stared down at Katie. "Is Conner still the better kisser?" His voice came out dark and husky, sending chills down her back. She silently shook her head. "And my hands?"
"Like a baby's bottom."
"What about my lips? What do they taste like?"
"Fruity Pebbles."
"What's with you and cereal?"
"I like it."
"What about Fruity Pebbles? Do you like those?"
She nodded.
"More than Corn Pops?"
"Much more."
"And my hair? Is it soft, thick, and luscious?"
She nodded once more and smiled.
"Good."
Katie motioned for him to bend down. He did as such and she pressed her lips to his ear, bringing chills down his spine. She whispered, "Conner's hair was still softer, though."
Travis stared at her, shocked and slightly amused. She shrugged and ran up the Demeter cabin steps, waving to him as she closed the door.
He was so using conditioner from now on.